Iraq the Vote

Juan Cole's latest post links to an article I saw elsewhere noting that even Iyad Allawi admits that "pockets" of Iraqis won't be able to vote in the election, now about three weeks away. Cole goes on:

Jordan's ambassador to the US, Karim Kawar, is among the few officials in the region or in Washington to admit the truth: The January 30 elections in Iraq have no real validity. He estiamtes that 40% of the country won't be able to vote.

An election in which the names of the candidates in the various lists are still not known 18 days before the polls open is a sick joke, not an election. What could it possibly mean, to vote for anonymous politicians? And note that they are anonymous because otherwise the guerrillas would kill them. Again, I think the election has to go forward, but I just don't expect much from it. The resulting government will be of questionable legitimacy, and the guerrilla war will if anything intensify. The elections are like all the other Wizard of Oz spectacles put on by the Bush administration in Iraq since April 9, 2003 -- the appointment of Garner, the appointment of Bremer, the appointment of an Interim Governing Council, the capture of Saddam, the "transition to sovereignty," etc., etc. Each of these was supposed to be some magical turning point and the beginning of sunshine and rainbows, and instead the situation has deteriorated every single month for the past nearly two years.

However, you can presume that news like this doesn't cloud the beautiful mind of the dauphin. No, he's got more important stuff to think about, like how to rip apart Social Security (the Rude Pundit has more on this), or, as Oyster saw and posted about, how to play politics with faith.

The latter piece, from the Washington Times, includes this bizarre photograph. If you ask me, its further proof that Chimpy McShrub is what is known as a "dry drunk."